Numb

Yesterday, I received a phone call in late morning from the wife of my oldest friend in the Department.  He was hired two years after me.  He had passed away in his sleep during the night. His office is next door to mine.

I just do not understand life anymore. 

I ran my damn 10 miles this morning.

I feel dead emotionally inside.  

PipeTobacco

More of the Same Plus More

 

So:

• still hurting emotionally about one of my kid's choices.... nothing to add other than the hurt is profound and deep
  
• when I went running this morning, I was a damn stupid idiot and imbecile again and was lost in my thoughts during a time where I was running across some rough sidewalk, and I again caught my shoe and tripped and tumbled.  I scraped up one knee and one elbow. I am such a damnable fool.  I was on a route that had only about 1.5 miles of the 10 miles I ran that was on rough sidewalk, and I was too damn imbecilic to pay attention during that short stretch.

I ran 10.3 miles again this morning. My bandaged knee is a bit swollen.  So much for any stress relief from running today.

I will be cyborging to try to get classes prepared the rest of the day.

It seems my life is stuck in a rinse and repeat cycle, and it is not a particularly pleasant one.

One brief reflection on a comment from yesterday:

The person who goes by the moniker "Unknown" stated yesterday:

"Your father would surely have been hurt if, during his lifetime, you told him, "Dad, I'm through with pipes, and you'll have to smoke alone, without me." But when you put your pipes down, you weren't trying to hurt him; you were trying to live your own best life."

I am not 100% sure if I am fully understanding Unknown's thoughts and opinions in the above.  But, the only thing I did wish to state is that in no way, no shape, and no form.... did I stop smoking my pipes in a way to hurt my father nor my father-in-law.  If either of them were alive, I would be more than happy to go back to my pipes in an instant and enjoy that camaraderie with either of them.  I am not smoking my pipes... not because I do not want to.... because I really do want to smoke my pipes.  I am not smoking my pipes though because a) it feels lonely, b) no matter how much art and literature have hyped the idea of proudly being a "lone wolf" on certain matters..... I know I do not like to feel like a "lone wolf" for pretty much anything for it just makes me feel isolated and like an outcast, and c) with no one to share the experience, it just seems to be a self-centered, vacuous, and overly self-indulgent activity for me to continue. 

PipeTobacco

Still Low

 

 

Still feeling extremely low.  The current situation is about a horrible, wrong, saddening decision one of my kids is making.  There is nothing to be done about it other than work to accept this.  I cannot write more about it, however. 

For today:

1.  I ran 10.4 miles (~17km) this morning.

2.  I attended a three hour on-line meeting.

3.  I am going to AGAIN cyborg on the computer the rest of the damn day.  Hopefully I will make some progress on Fall class preparation.  However, my heart is not into this or anything for that matter.

That's it for today.

PipeTobacco

Rough & Lack of Energy

After a very rough emotional time this weekend, I do not have the energy or stamina or emotional fortitude to continue to write about my time away in today's post.  Perhaps tomorrow.

For today:

1.  I ran 10.4 miles (~17km) this morning.

2.  I am going to cyborg on the computer the rest of the damn day.  Hopefully I will make some progress on Fall class preparation.  My heart is not into this at the moment, either.  But, it has to be done.

That is about it for me.

PipeTobacco

Break

 

Yesterday's writing was rather exhausting, so I am taking a bit of a break from continuing on what I was writing until Monday.  

The comments I received from all of you, however, caused me to think a bit, and I have been pondering them a great deal.  At one level, I can understand the reactions to my telling of these harsh events that had happened in my life.... and I definitely appreciate the concern and the guidance and well wishes.  

However, in the same vein, I get a sense that some are feeling these harsh events are.... I do not know how to state it correctly... but perhaps "out of the ordinary" is the best way to say this.  I am not really sure how to think about this.  For me, as my life has progressed, these harsh things (fortunately) only occurred a small number of times.  I have always just kind of assumed that most folks had their own list of "harsh things" that they too have had to deal with in life.... and like me, for the most part.... they keep these events deep inside themselves... trying to keep them tucked away... out of day-to-day life, because what can actually be done about them?  In reality, nothing can be done.  They happened, and they were experienced.  That does not change.  

For example, when I spoke of the fellow who attempted to outrun the train.... in the aftermath of the event... I had asked my parents what happened to the fellow.  They had told me that he had to be hospitalized, but that he recovered.  I also asked about his leg.  My parents told me that unfortunately his leg could not be reattached, so he had to use crutches.  To this day, though.... I am not really sure about this event.  If I were to hazard a guess as an adult... I am thinking the fellow may have actually died from his injuries at the scene, but that my parents may have wanted to shield me from that.  I am not sure, however.  But I am not sure if it is important or not for me to personally know what happened in the end.  

In a similar vein, when my wonderful dog was killed, initially I felt horrifically guilty.  I thought that if I had only come home a bit later the speeding car would not have been there, or that if my dog had been on her leash like she nearly always was when she was in the front yard, it would not have happened, or if the hot rodder had driven some other route it would not have happened.  But.... it DID happen, and there wasn't anything to do or think about that could change that.  

But, in the greater scheme of things... I have always presumed these traumas were pretty "normal" and that everyone has their own list of them that they inadvertently recall and relive if they are unfortunately forced into a darker mental space.   I mean, there are MANY who have experienced far more deep horrors in life than I have experienced, thought of or even imagined.  

The other thing I realized yesterday, after I had written out my experience of the things I was cursing God about, was that during that time, I did not think about or mention any of the suicides I have experienced over the years.  By writing out my feelings, I realized these horrific suicides and suicide attempts that affected my family felt "different" to a degree.  What I realized I had been roiling and cursing and condemning during this dark time were those events that were "random".  Perhaps the reason cursing about the suicides and suicide attempts did not come to mind during that time was because they were to some degree more "purposeful" by the person.  Again, I am not really sure.... just speculating about why my mind had not thought of them during this very bleak period.  If you may not have been reading when I wrote of the suicides, the post can be found here.  

PipeTobacco

Civil But Little Else

 

After getting myself bandaged up, as I stated yesterday, I laid down on the bed and slept.  I think I slept for perhaps two hours.  Technically, I was supposed to go to a meeting at the U during some of the time while I was sleeping, but basically, I said "to hell with it".  It was a pretty damn useless meeting anyhow, and truth-be-told, I didn't give a sh*t at this point about it or really about anything.

I was.... very simply..... filled with a rage and an anger that was at a level I had never felt in myself before.  In my mind, I was seething about everything.... 

a) the stroke my friend had, 

b) the painful cuts, scrapes, and whole body aches and pains I was feeling, 

c) the death of the son of our family friend, 

d) past hurts from the "dynamic duo" at work, 

e) Covid-19, 

f) the fools who refuse to vaccinate, 

g) climate change, 

h) the sh*tty way much of our politics and our world operates today.  

But, I was angry and upset and raging as well about a whole lot of crap in the past as well.... 

a) remembering the death of my father 27 years ago and how he struggled to breath, because the damnable asbestos had induced cancer of the pleura  (mesothelioma) which encircled his lungs preventing him from taking in breaths at the end.  And, all I could do was stand there helpless, holding his hand as I felt his life slip away from him, 

b) how 14 years ago, my mother had gone into the hospital for a prophylactic surgery to have two stents inserted into two vessels that had *somewhat* narrowed on her heart... to keep the blood flow strong and robust for her healthy heart... and how two days after the surgery... the morning before she was to be discharged, I was awoken at 4am by the phone telling me that I needed to get to the hospital immediately.  I raced there, on icy roads in my truck.... reaching the hospital in less than 10 minutes when it typically takes 20.  Bounding up to her hospital room, she lay there dead..... she developed a blood clot around the damnable piece of sh*t stent and it broke free... lodging deeper in the vessel throwing her into cardiac arrest.  I was too late to be there with her, but I held her hand, she was still warm, 

c) how... long ago... my wife and I attempted to have our last child, and lost it to miscarriage, 

d) how back when I was just an eleven year old and my uncle who lived in our home with us suffered a fatal heart attack in his room, and I remember the ambulance coming to our home, the gurney they used to wheel him out of our home and rush him to the hospital and my never seeing him alive again after the ambulance left, 

e) how when I was 10, and I was playing in the backyard, and some damnable jack*ss tried to out run the train that was barreling down the tracks that ran alongside our home.... the screeching of metal as the car crumbled under the force of the train, how by the time the train was able to stop, the fellow and his car and the front of the train were a block or two farther away than when they impacted.... but the fellow's severed leg laid by the side of the tracks in our yard, 

f) how when I was seven and was coming home from a friend's house across the street a few doors down.... and our family dog saw me and ambled out across the damnable street to come see me and was hit by a jack*ss SPEEDING down the road in his damnable hot rod.... hearing my dogs last yelp at impact..... but then hearing the impact two times... once for the front wheels and once for the rear wheels, hearing the cracking of the bones in my dog's body, seeing her body roll in the disheveled, ungainly fashion only a damaged body can, seeing the blood coming out of the orifices of her head, 

g) when I was four..... seeing the neighbor girl who was two years older than me and was riding her bicycle in the road and the car that hit her head on.... and remembering how upon impact how she flew up and over the car and landed on her head behind the vehicle and watching her Dad pick her up and rush her to the hospital.

I now hated everything.  I continued to seethe and rage about these things to God and cursed and seethed about God as just as vehemently and viciously as well.  

This continued for the better part of three days.  I was civil to my wife, and civil to any of my kids that were around.  I visited my friend in the hospital, and I ran.  I worked in my office by myself.  But, I was not really "there" in any appreciable sense.  I was just filling space, trying to just get through it.... but I was not really participating in anything.  It was internally just seething with rage and anger.

PipeTobacco

Putting it Down on the Page

 

I just did  not feel up to trying to put down the next segment of my recent journey onto the page yesterday.  I wish I had tried, for then it would be over, and I wouldn't feel the need to get this onerous task done.  But, once I do write this, it will be easier henceforth:

And, before I begin, please do know that what I will write may be perceived as rather foolish, or dull-witted, or naive, or even just a waste of time.  I get that.  If there is one thing I have always been cognizant of is that my ideas and opinions do not always match or jive with the thoughts of others.  And, that is also ok.  And, even if you feel like giving me a jibe (or gibe) for what I express... that too is fine.  I can take the criticism, and probably even will attempt to learn something from it.  

 So, it was two days after learning of my friend's severe stroke, and several days after the passing of the son of a family friend I had written about.  I had forced myself out of bed a 4:45am so I could get on the trail to begin my run.  I was in a rather sour mood, having had restless sleep, and also from all the feelings and emotions I had been working through from the events of the last several days.  The idea of a run was NOT exciting to me in the least.  But, I was already lagging a bit in the week's ~53-55 mile (~85-88 km) goal.  And, I was feeling awfully damn tired of the same trail, day after day.  So, I got out the door and walked to my usual start point, and decided I would run somewhere else..... not the usual, safe, smooth trail I run so often.  And, I had the goal in my mind that I would need to run at least 10 miles (~16km) to help me get back on track.  So, off I went.

As is my routine, as I ran, I began to work through praying the rosary while I ran.  The run was actually helping me to shed a bit of the top layer of the stress and anxiety I had been feeling, and praying the rosary was also helping me quell some of my roiling emotions.  By about mile 7 (~11km) I really was focusing internally on my thoughts and feelings, and I was running in an area of town that was somewhere I had never ran before.  It felt a bit freeing and I could even sense a bit of an improvement in my emotional energy.  

But, as hit somewhere around 7.5 miles (~12km), I was being an utter idiot, and was not focused or paying attention... and I KNOW I need to pay attention... I was just being a damn imbecile.   So.... because of my lazy mental focus and own sheer stupidity, I ended up catching the front toe region of my sneaker on a raised edge of sidewalk that was cracked and elevated due to some tree roots that had expanded underneath the sidewalk.

My body lurched forward uncontrollably and as I fell, I started to instinctively try to break my fall with my hands, but also knowing this could lead to broken bones, I pulled back some on my arms as well, so they were not straight.  I tumbled hard onto the coarse concrete, and then tumbled over the top of myself from the momentum of the initial strike on the sidewalk and came to a dead stop onto my rib cage on my left side.  I then rolled myself over onto my back, into the grass and laid out there, splayed like a used washrag while I tried to assess the damage.

The tally was I had two badly scraped up knees, a badly scraped elbow, a large, raw abrasion on my left shoulder, and a cut on my cheek.  The knees, elbow, and cheek were oozing out blood.  I had a lot of aches and pains as well from various locations where I had contacted the concrete but had not damaged the skin. 

But, the blood leaving my body was no where near as severe as the blood I emotionally felt in my mind and the blood I could emotionally see in my eyes.  I became livid, and angry beyond any measure I could comprehend.  I eased my aching body upright.  I took a few tentative steps.... and then I took off running the rest of the way home.  BUT, I was was SO angry, SO hurt, SO boiling over in rage.... I started to curse God, and cursed and raged at God for all my hurts and all the hurts of my friends and of all this sh*t I have been going through over the last few years from the "wretched two" at work.  I bellowed out every vile epithet I could imagine.  I cussed, and cursed, and raged and condemned, and  said curse words I think I have never uttered before.  I told God that if this is how it was going to be, that he damn well should end it now, because the way things were was just too much.  I continued to curse, condemn and rage against God all the way home for the remainder of the miles.  

By the time I reached the driveway, blood had ran down from my knees into my socks and even some to my shoes.  Similar trails of blood flowed from my cheek and my elbow.  I walked into the backyard and peeled off my shoes and socks and using the garden hose, I washed the excess blood from my legs and elbow and face so that I could go into the house and not leave a blood trail.  I then walked upstairs to the bathroom, and took a shower (painful on the wounds, especially the very raw shoulder abbrasion, but it was extremely necessary), and then proceeded to bandage myself up.  I laid down on the bed, and continued to think and express the most vile, most derogatory, and the most  angry words I could muster to and about God and about life. I had never felt such intense hatred and anger.  And I continued this cursing until I fell asleep about a half an hour later.

That's it for today.  More next time.

Nutrition Facts

 

Ok.  I am *thinking* I can be back here, writing again.  I am going to *try* to return to my normal consistency.  The last few weeks have been in many ways a blur, and have been extremely chaotic and difficult emotionally.  Yet, I have had some moments of happiness as well during this roiling time.  

I think I am going to start off small, with easier to write (smaller) segments as I work to explain what has been happening and why I needed to temporarily stop posting.  So..... again.... just starting at the beginning and working through bits and pieces of this over the next few days seems the most successful option for me....

1.  In one of the last posts I had written, I had spoken of how a family friend's son unexpectedly died of sepsis following an equally surprising emergency surgery.  He was in his mid 30s and it was devastating to so many of his family and friends.  The funeral was rough as well. 

2.  Within a few days of that tragedy, a close friend and colleague who is three offices down the hall from me was hospitalized after suffering what appears to be at least four very significant strokes.  This too was highly unexpected and has been horrific in many ways.  I have been traveling to the hospital to visit him multiple times.  He is only a couple of years older than me.  He has regained some of his ability to speak and his motor function is showing some signs of improvement as well, but the ultimate recovery prognosis is very unclear.  Besides the hurt, sadness and worry I am feeling for my friend, this situation has also dredged up a lot of memories about my own sister and the stroke that she experienced several years ago.  

There is a whole lot more to write about, but this is a start.  I will try to continue tomorrow.  The title and image I have shown here really does not pertain to anything other than I was looking at a similar nutrition label just prior to my typing here.  I am rather in a mode where I am just trying to put down the facts of what has been transpiring, and not so much delving into my feelings or emotions about things at the moment.  I am not sure I am up for trying to organize my emotions much at the moment.  Trying to ignore them and just plodding onward seems about what I am capable of at the moment. 

 PipeTobacco